


Different, Yet So Alike

by Madison02



Series: Based on OTP Prompts [7]
Category: The Road to El Dorado (2000)
Genre: Asperger Syndrome, Developing Relationship, Disabled Character, Learning Disabilities, M/M, Medical Inaccuracies, Physical Disability, Pre-Relationship, Tags Are Hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:55:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26875531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madison02/pseuds/Madison02
Summary: Miguel is an 8-year-old boy with medium long golden blonde hair, with large grass-green eyes and he was the sweetest boy you could ever hope to meet. He also had a heart condition called Anomalous Coronary Arteries or ACA.Due to his past schools not taking his condition seriously, his parents have decided to put him inside a special school for children that just needed a little more attention, like him.There he meets another boy, called Tulio, who has Asperger syndrome, who does not make a good first impression.Over time the boys come to understand each other, but there is a mean vice principal, who thinks he can 'fix' children with mental disabilities and it turns out he said his eyes on Tulio for a long time.
Relationships: Miguel & Tulio (Road to El Dorado), Miguel/Tulio (Road to El Dorado)
Series: Based on OTP Prompts [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1475441
Kudos: 31





	Different, Yet So Alike

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the prompt:
> 
> Person A and Person B are both in a school for children with disabilities.

Miguel was born with a heart condition called Anomalous Coronary Arteries or ACA. It's a rare occurrence that meant the arteries that supply his heart with blood do not come from the usual location on the large artery that arises from the heart.

It meant that blood didn’t get to his heart the best, he could and would faint or pass out if he did too much activity. It drove him crazy because he wanted to explore! How was he gonna become the world’s greatest adventurer if he couldn’t even run for 5 minutes without passing out?

Miguel was an 8-year-old boy with medium long golden blonde hair, with large grass-green eyes and he was the sweetest boy you could ever hope to meet.

He hated his condition but he knew his parents worried a lot about him a lot so he tried not to vent his frustrations too much.

Which was why he was quiet in the back seat of his parent's car while they drove him to his third new school in the last five years.

It was about them not taking his problems seriously or something but he remembered his parents getting mad when his last gym teacher forced him to run laps till he fainted, he gained a little scar above his eyebrow from a cut when he hit his head against the floor.

So now he was going to a ‘Special School’ as his mom put it, where there were other kids like him that just needed that little more special attention, he just hoped they were nicer then the other kids at his other schools were.

He imagined himself meeting new people and making lots of friends, he liked having friends but he never had lots of them, most of the other kids didn’t like him, a few did but when he had to move schools he had to leave them behind. He couldn’t really remember them but he remembered how they made him feel.

He didn’t expect a huge building with big gates and lots of bright colours painted everywhere.

He didn’t like saying goodbye to his parents but the principal seamed nice, he was a large man with a kind smile that made Miguel feel safe.

He was told he would be put with the higher functioning children, whatever that meant, with a lady that everybody called Miss Chel.

She was really pretty, with long black hair and eyes like chocolate, she seemed surprisingly nice and introduced him to the class. Everyone smiled and greeted him, but the first person that Miguel was drawn too was a boy, who was a bit taller and seemed a little older than him in the corner of the room, not smiling or even really looking at him as he was sat at a table, he just continued to draw.

That seemed strange to Miguel so he walked over and saw that the boy was drawing with crayons, but only the gold crayon was being used, it was practically down to a nub while all the other crayons looked untouched. The drawing seemed to be like buildings but there were like pyramids, it was well-drawn.

“What are you drawing?” He asked as he moved to the opposite side of the table, looking down at the boy. He did not get a response.

That was weird. Maybe he didn’t hear him?

“Hey, what are you drawing?” He asked, a little louder this time.

This time, he did get an answer. “I heard you the first time.” The boy said bluntly.

“Well, why didn’t you answer me?” Miguel didn’t like this kids tone but asked anyway.

“I was focusing on my drawing.” The boy said, tonelessly, still not having looked up.

“Well, what are you drawing?” Miguel asked for the third time as he grabbed a chair and sat down from across the boy.

“I’m drawing the supposed temples from the lost city of gold, El Dorado.” The kid said as he reached over for another gold crayon.

“Wow, that sounds cool! My name’s Miguel, what’s yours?” Miguel said enthusiastically, hoping to make a new friend on the first day.

“So what’s your problem? You’re with us in the high functioning class, so your not brain dead or something, what’s wrong with you?” The boy asked out of the blue.

That stopped Miguel in his tracks. There was nothing wrong with him, right? He had to have special attention because of his heart condition!

“There’s nothing wrong with me! I just have a heart condition!” He almost yelled, he was surprised that the other boy flinched and covered his ears.

“Don’t yell!” The boy shouted, loud enough to get the teachers attention.

“Tulio what’s the matter?” Miss Chel asked as she leaned down next to the boy, Tulio was the boy's name, apparently.

“He’s yelling, I hate yelling!” Tulio called out as he reached down and gripped one of his drawings so hard it ripped in some places.

“Tulio, I need you to calm down. You don’t wanna have another meltdown do you?” Miss Chel asked as she carefully put her hand on his shoulder.

The boy just shook his head. Miss Chel then asked if he wanted to go into the soft room, whatever that was. He nodded again and then she led him out of the room, she came back five minutes later and came up to Miguel.

“Would you like to tell me why you yelled?” She asked. Not accusingly or anything, she just wanted to hear about what happened.

“Well, first he ignored me when I tried to talk to him at first. Then when I asked him his name, he didn’t answer me. Then he asked what was wrong with me, why I needed to be here.” Miguel started tearing up when he laid out what actually happened, Miss Chel then brought him into a hug, comforting him.

Then she said, ”Oh Miguel, I’m so sorry. I should’ve told you about Tulio. You have to understand that he doesn’t mean any harm, he might not even have realised what he said wrong. You see, he has Asperges Syndrome.”

“W-what does that mean?” Miguel sniffled. He had never heard about that before.

“It means that his brain works a little differently, you know how your heart is different? Well, Tulio’s brain works differently from everyone else’s. In his mind he was just asking a simple question, he really didn’t mean to upset you.” Miss Chel paused before continuing “And his senses are more sensitive, your yelling overstimulated him, so I put in somewhere to calm down. I’m also going to talk to him after this so he can understand why you got upset, would you like to draw in the meantime?”

Miguel nodded, while he still didn’t understand completely, he knew what Miss Chel was trying to say.

He would apologise for yelling after Tulio came back.

———

After an hour, Tulio finally came back.

Miguel was about to go over and apologise for yelling when the boy came over to him holding out a piece of paper. He didn’t look him in the eye but he shook the paper when Miguel was too shocked to take it as first.

He slowly took the paper and unfurled it. He gasped, it was a beautiful drawing of some kind of temple and he could see that he was in the drawing, it was so accurate that if he didn’t know any better, he’d say that it was a picture.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. Everyone is always telling me I should think about how I say things. My name is Tulio and I have Asperger Syndrome, it’s a developmental disorder characterised by significant difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behaviour and interests.”

“Uhh, I’m not sure what most of that meant but Miss Chel already told me. I like your drawing, it’s really good.” Miguel replied. He tried to pass the drawing back but Tulio held his hand up and stopped him.

“It’s your drawing now. I made it for you, as an apology. See, it has you in it. At first, I was worried about not getting your eyes right but I’m glad I guessed right.” Tulio said, pointing to Miguel’s eyes in the drawing.

“You made this for me? That’s really nice of you; I accept your apology.” Miguel said smiling, holding the drawing to his chest. But the smile dropped when Tulio turned and started to walk away.

He lunged forward and grabbed on the sleeve of Tulio’s long baggy blue sweater. “Wait. Don’t you wanna be friends?” He asked.

That caused Tulio’s head to turn back. “Friends? You... still wanna be friends? Even after everything I said?” Tulio was so confused, this had never happened to him before. He had noticed a pattern in his life. He met someone new, he said something that offended or upset them, he stepped back and then apologised, they sometimes accepted it but then they left him alone. Time and time again he messed up a perfectly budding friendship with the way his stupid brain worked.

But this was off pattern, this was different.

Miguel was different.

Miguel still wanted to be his friend, Tulio didn’t understand, but he wasn’t gonna look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Uh, yeah. I’d like that.”

“Yay! Oh sorry... yay.” Miguel first cheered, but then said it in a quiet voice when Tulio flinched away slightly but smiled softly when Miguel apologised.

“So... What do friends do?” Tulio asked, rubbing his fingers against his sweater.

“You don’t know?” Miguel questioned, tilting his head to the side in confusion.

“No... I’ve never really had a friend before...” Tulio said embarrassed, again avoiding Miguel’s eyes, fiddling with the bottom of his sweater.

“Aww, well I’ll help you. I’m now your official first friend!” Miguel said enthusiastically, making sure not to be too loud. “Well, can you teach me to draw as good as you, please?”

“Heh, there’s no trick to it. I just do it a lot since it’s linked to my special interest. It’s really just practice, but I can teach you some techniques if you want?” Tulio said, his smile widening more.

“Sure and while we’re at it, you can tell me more about your condition, if you want to?” Miguel asked as he moved to sit down at the table but not before bringing another chair next to his.

“Oh, ok. Well first it’s not really a condition, it’s more like a disorder but I don’t like that word, it makes people think I’m dumb but I’m not dumb.” Tulio explained as he sat down and grabbed a small stack of paper. “I also have trouble telling what people are feeling inside if they don’t tell me. I’m not good at picking up if someone is mad without yelling at me or sad if they're not crying, you get it?” Miguel nodded along, he as watching in awe at the boy next to him, he was so cool.

“And I have these things called ‘special interests’ which is where I can only really focus on one thing that’s I like, sometimes I have to be physically dragged away from this desk, hehe...heh...” Tulio trailed off as he set the crayons up, realising how stupid that made him sound. “That’s kind of pathetic, isn’t it?”

“No! Not at all! I think it’s awesome that you know so much stuff. Sometimes it’s really hard for me to focus on any one thing but you can do it no problem. I wish I was like you.” Miguel praised.

Tulio felt like crying. That was the saddest/nicest thing anyone had ever said to him. On one hand, it felt nice that someone liked him and wanted to be like him; but on the other hand, he hated himself. He hated the way that he always ruined everything with just a few words because he could never pick up on how a person would feel about what he said.

“Tulio? Is everything ok?” Miguel asked, waving his hand in front if Tulio’s dead eyes as he stared into nothingness, it was slightly creepy.

“Why?” Tulio practically whispered out.

“Huh? I didn’t hear you.” Miguel said, leaning closer.

“Why? Why would you want to be anything like me? I don’t wanna be like me, but you’ve known me less than an hour and you already think I’m so great.” Tulio shook his head as he tried to figure out what was happening, when he felt an arm wrap around him, hugging him tightly. Normally, he hated physical contact, only his parents and Miss Chel was the exception but Tulio didn’t feel the need to pull away, he didn’t feel that wrong feeling he got whenever he was touched by anyone else. So he leaned into it and hugged back.

“Your right, I do think you're great. It’s sad you don’t think so, so you’re a little different from everyone, so what? Isn’t everybody else here? So you’re not alone. I'm definitely not like you but I’m not like anybody else, am I?” Miguel said as he pulled back, gesturing to everyone else and himself.

Tulio shook his head as he wiped the unshed tears from his eyes. He smiled as he gently gripped one of Miguel's fingers.

“Yeah, You're really not. Come on, I’ll show you have to draw a face shape and guidelines.”

The two boys sat at that table until it was nearly lunchtime, by then Miguel could roughly draw a face with mixed match eyes and a mouth that was just a little too high but he was a lot better than when he started.

But then the door was knocked, everyone looked with anticipation, all except Miguel who looked around in confusion. “Hey, what’s going on?” He whispered as Miss Chel got up to answer the door. Tulio shushed him and began frantically scribbling on a blank piece of paper with a pencil.

“Shh! Don’t talk, don’t make a sound, Just act busy!” He didn’t look up as his grip on the pencil became tighter. Miguel didn’t argue and went back to fixing some of the mistakes on his paper but glancing up at the door as Miss Chel opened it.

There was a tall, tan-skinned man with dark eye standing on the other side. He wore a deep red suit and what seemed to be golden earring hoop on his ear and a necklace in the shape of a cat, a Jaguar maybe?

Miguel couldn’t hear what they were saying but noticed the man was scanning the room until his gaze landed on him, The man stared at him before looking back down at Miss Chel. Miguel then could barely make out something about the principal and Miss Chel.

Miguel leaned over to Tulio and whispered. “Who’s that?”

“That’s the vice-principal, Mr Tzekel-Kan. Don’t look at him, he might come over.” He hissed as he kept his gaze on the now ravaged paper.

Miguel couldn’t understand why Tulio was so focused on avoiding the man. He looked a little scary but he couldn’t be bad, could he?

Suddenly a hand slammed down on the table, causing both boys to jump and lookup.

It was Mr Tzekel-Kan. Tulio immediately dropped his gaze but Miguel continues to stare at him until the man spoke.

“You must be the new boy I heard about today. The one with ACA, Michael was it?” The man’s voice was deep but his tone was hard to read, even for Miguel. He didn’t exactly sound happy, but not mad either.

“Uhh, it’s Miguel sir.” Miguel corrected, wincing as the man got his name wrong.

“Right, my apologies. How are you finding your first day?” He asked, leaning closer with a smirk.

Miguel was about to go off into a tangent about his new friend in all the stuff they drawn together until the man actually looked at Tulio, and his smirk fell.

“Tulio, how are you today?” He asked, his voice becoming stiff and emotionless.

Tulio didn’t answer, instead, he played with the helm of his sweater.

“Tulio, are you being nonverbal again? Because if you are, we have to go back into the room.” Suddenly his tone became cold and sinister.

Miguel saw Tulio freeze before he wiped around and cried at Mr Tzekel-Kan. “No! Please! Not there again, I’ll be good, I’ll talk! I promise!” He pleaded, his hand crumpling his papers as his grip became tighter.

Then the man smiled, “There, see? Was that so hard? Being good is easy, isn’t it?”

Tulio nodded pitifully before his slumped in the chair and sat still. “That’s a good boy, now sit there and be good until Miss Chel comes back.”

Suddenly he put his hand on Miguel's shoulder. “Come on now Miguel, you can find better children to play with.” And he was pulled up from the seat and lead away from the drawing table. He didn’t want to play with anyone else, he wanted to draw some more with Tulio. But the way Mr Tzekel-Kan was looking at him, he didn’t have much of a choice.

He was placed on another table with some other kids who were writing on some worksheets, he was given his own and a pencil. “If you’re having trouble, ask one of them to help you.” Mr Tzekel-Kan said before turning around and sitting at Miss Chel’s desk.

Miguel watched him leave before turning back to his worksheet, he stared at it before sighing and putting his head on his hands. He looked up at the other kids, there were a boy and two girls. They were staring at him, he hadn’t noticed that before.

“Don’t look so sad. Your one of the lucky ones.” The girl closest to him whispered, leaning forward a small bit.

“What do you mean?” He whispered back.

“Mr Tzekel-Kan likes us, he won’t be mean to you.” The other girl muttered; it was then he noticed she was in a wheelchair.

“Why not? What’s so special about us?”

The boy leaned over, “He says were The good ones since we have ‘physical disorders’, he doesn’t like the ones with ‘mental disorders’.” Using quotation air arks with his fingers.

What? What does that even mean?

“Physical disorders?”

“Yeah, Jenny has limited mobility, I have a heart condition like you and Bill doesn’t have a leg.” The girl whispered again, pointing at each one of them respectively.

“Ok, but what does that have to do with anything?” He asked, getting a little frustrated.

“It means he actually sees us as having a disability. With the other ones he thinks he can fix them, make them ‘normal’.”

Fix them? How can you fix a person who isn’t broken?

“Everyone seemed so scared of him. I don’t think I like him very much…”

“You don’t have to like him, you just have to stay out of his way. He doesn’t come around here very often but when he does, just sit here with us and do your work.” The girl butted in, before going back to her worksheet, as well as did the others.

Miguel just looked behind him and saw Tulio, struggling to sit still, his hands were twitching, but every time Mr Tzekel-Kan looked over he went completely still.

“And if I were you, I wouldn’t talk to Tulio anymore,” Bill remarked, not looking up from his paper.

Miguel’s head snapped back and he hissed out. “Huh? What?! Why not?”

“Because Mr Tzekel-Kan hates him. He doesn’t like how his teaching doesn’t work on him, so he locks him in the closet from time to time... you can hear him screaming and begging to come out but Mr Tzekel-Kan won’t let him out until he does whatever he says.”

“Oh my god...” suddenly Miguel was starting to realise why Tulio was so afraid of this man. “That’s not fair!”

“We know, but there’s nothing we can do about it, we tried telling Miss Chel but was Tulio so scared he lied and said Mr Tzekel-Kan didn’t do it. Some tried telling her in Private but she said that if we didn’t have any evidence, she couldn't do anything. But she doesn’t seem happy when he comes over to take over the class when she’s busy.” Jenny piped up, a sad tone in her voice.

These kids weren’t bad, that’s just the thing, they were kids. They all were.

Miguel couldn’t except that, it wasn’t fair! Nothing about that was ok.

Miguel turned around again and noticed Tulio was looking back at him, he waved at him and Tulio waved back but then Mr Tzekel-Kan stood from the desk and stomped over to him, blocking Miguel view.

He didn’t even think. He immediately stood up, got out of his seat and ran over to the drawing table.

When he got over he saw the older man gripping Tulio small wrist and he heard part of what he was hissing in the boys face. “-little brat. Why can’t you listen to any simple instruction?! I have prayed for you every single night and yet you’ve continued to resist the healing of my god, you little heathen! Maybe some time in the room will make you listen.” The man pulled the child up by his arm, causing him to squeak out in pain.

That squeak made Miguel mad. Madder then he had ever been, now he understood what his parents felt like when his gym teacher made him faint. He saw red as he lunged forward and gripped back of the man’s suit and pulled with all his strength.

Causing Mr Tzekel-Kan to lose his balance, let Tulio go and fall onto his back, knocking him out. The room was silent as everyone looked on in shock and horror at what Miguel had just done. Miguel didn’t think twice and stepped over the Vice-principal to comfort his friend.

“Are you ok? Did he hurt you?” Miguel asked, gently taking Tulio’s slacked wrist into his hand, looking it over. There was slight bruising but otherwise, he looked fine.

Tulio was stunned, “He’s gonna kill us.” Tulio whispered, not taking his eyes off the still body.

Miguel brought the other boy into a deep hug, hoping to calm him down. “It’s ok, I’m not gonna let him hurt you, ok? You're my best friend, Best friends look out for each other, right?”

Tulio didn’t answer, he was too busy fighting tears. He slowly then relaxed and hugged back.

Everything was gonna be ok.

…Until Mr Tzekel-Kan got back up. Tulio didn’t even have time to gasp before Miguel was ripped from his grasp and lifted by his shoulders. Miguel's eyes widened as he looked into the eye of an insane man. Tzekel-Kan shook the boy violently as he spat in the boys face, “You! YOU! I should snap your little neck, you and that freaks! I can’t wait till my God kills you all!” The man roared in anger.

Tulio tried to reach his friend but found himself violently kicked back into the table, hitting his head in the process.

Miguel could hear his heart pounding in his ears out of fear, but when he heard Tulio cry out in pain, he reacted without thinking, not that he’d be able to hear himself anyway, and bit Mr Tzekel-Kan's hand, causing the man to scream in pain and drop him painfully on the floor. The next thing he knew hands were around his neck and just as he just felt the pressure of the man's big hands, a scream premiered the air.

“TZEKEL-KAN, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

Everyone looked at the door and saw the principal and Miss Chel standing there with anger and shock in their eyes. Mr Tzekel-Kan let go as if touching the boy had burned him.

Miguel couldn’t hear anything, only the sound of his heart in his ears. That was never a good sign. He felt a hand placed on his shoulder and looked over to see Tulio next to him, face full of concern. He was talking to him but he couldn’t hear anything the boy was saying, he only saw his lips moving. Miguel’s vision started to blur, then black dots appeared in front of it.

And then the next thing he knew, was the inky black void of unconsciousness.

——

Miguel could hear voices. Familiar voices. He opened his eyes slowly as the light blinded him.

“Tulio?” He crocked out. He opened his eyes fulling and saw Miss Chel and an unknown woman next to her.

“Miguel, oh thank goodness, we were worried for a while there. We almost called the hospital.” Miss Chel sighed with relief as she stroked his hair out of his face.

“What happened?” He asked.

“You fainted because your heart got too excited. So we brought you to the nurse's office, you gave us all quite a scare." Miguel leaned up, rubbing his eyes to help them adjust faster. Then he remembered everything.

He tried to leap out of the bed but the nurse caught him and gently pushed him back down. "Woah, Woah there young man. You're in no condition to be getting up just yet."

"But what about Tulio?" Miguel fretted, he hoped Tulio wasn't freaking out too much. Miss Chel step forward and put her hand on Miguel's shoulder. "Tulio is waiting for you outside, he's the one that insisted on carrying you here but unfortunately we couldn't let him in the room, he's been waiting out there for almost 2 hours. He can come in if you want?"

Miguel nodded frantically but continued to lay down on the bed.

When the nurse opened the door, Tulio didn't wait to be called in. He immediately sprinted into the room and practically leapt onto the bed, hugging his friend tightly, a hug which Miguel returned with gusto.

Things were mostly a blur after that, Miguel and Tulio were asked about what happened and both gave their side of the story. Tulio even confessed that the horrible treatment had been going on ever since he had come into contact with the vice-principal, leaving both adults horrified but not surprised. Tzekel-Kan had a sketchy past, there was a rumour that he was a huge part of a cult many years ago but was never caught when the cult was apprehended by the FBI.

But now that more and more of the other children that Tzekel-Kan had tried to 'fix' were coming forward with there stories, there was enough evidence to put him away for a long time.

Not that Miguel and Tulio needed to know all that, all they were concerned about was each other.

From that day forward, the two were inseparable. Miguel would help translate social situations for Tulio and Tulio would make sure Miguel took his medication and didn't exert himself too much. 

Eventually, they would grow up, and the more they grew up, the more they would question their relationship. At first, it was purely platonic but as they grew older they started feeling things, things they didn't know what to do with it first, Tulio especially. 

He was so afraid to ask Miguel about what the feelings meant, and if he returned them. 

Miguel was petrified of losing Tulio, afraid that Tulio wouldn't understand his feelings for him and things would become awkward. 

Tulio made the first move at the age of 17 and Miguel was 16. It was very sudden and unexpected, one second they were talking in Miguel's house, the next Tulio had leaned over and kissed him out of the blue. It took all of 3 seconds for Miguel to kiss back. 

Both men were so different, they both struggled in different ways. Miguel with physical activity and with keeping his heart monitored and Tulio with social situations and certain types of smells, touches or sounds. 

But both of them also struggled with their emotions. Tulio was mostly sarcastic and sometimes sounded rude when he didn't mean to be at all. Miguel was fiercely protective of not just his friend but everyone around him, he had gotten into one too many fights trying to defend his friends honour when really it would be best if he just walked away. 

But both also needed each other, in more ways than one. 

And life was hard being disabled, it always was and it always would be. But when they had each other to lean on, they know things were going to be ok in the end. They were both very different, personality and looks-wise, but they both had one major thing in common. 

They'd always have each other's back, no matter what.


End file.
